Tomato & corn extravaganza

That’s my mom Lavone, age 92-and 7-months old, salivating over a slightly under-ripe Brandywine weighing in at one pound 9 ounces. (LaVone insists that after age 90, the number of months should be added to one’s age because 90 is when the months start counting a lot again, just like when it was a big deal if you were one year or 18-months old. More about that another time.)

Anyway, the garden is pumping out tomatoes like crazy. CRAZY. Paul picked about 70 pounds of tomatoes Sunday (Gee - wonder what I'll be doing today....) and that's just the beginning. I'm already feeling rich with tomatoes for winter and will soon be firing up the food dryer and hauling out the veggie roasting pan, and maybe even the pressure cooker. In the meantime, we have all the fixens for the best summer salads, like this extravagant delight.
It's called "tomatoes and marinated veggies with corn-raft garnish," and is from writer/artist Jan Roberts-Dominguez's syndicated food column, which I read in the Medford Mail Tribune. I rarely follow a recipe to the T, so here's Jan's renamed and abbreviated recipe with the modifications that saved me a trip to the grocery store and let me use one of those monster tomatoes plus a bunch of fresh sweet stuff from the garden.





Hot damn tomato/corn salad with marinated veggies
1 medium-sized cuke, sliced. No need to peel a fresh burpless cuke.
8-10 sweet small peppers, any color, cut into pieces, seeds removed. (Jimmy Nardello's sweet Italian is what I used. An Italian heirloom and sooooo good.)
1 med-sized sweet onion, chopped
3 ears corn, cooked, cooled & cut off the cob
1-2 large Brandywine or other heirloom tomatoes, sliced. (Jan's recipe calls for4 large tomatoes, but maybe her's didn't weigh nearly 2 pounds each.)
4-6 ounces crumbled blue cheese (good, but next time I'll use feta.)

Combine the cukes, peppers, and onion toss with a liberal amount of vinaigrette. Marinate for about 3 hours. (Use a bottled Italian-type dressing, or make your own like I did from Jan's recipe for dilled vinaigrette. Either way, add some fresh dill and/or a dollop of pesto. )

Boil the corn for a couple minutes, cool, then slice off the cob in chunks, like in the photo.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange in a single layer on a large plate. Use a slotted spoon to dish the marinated veggies over the tomatoes, then carefully place the corn on top of all. Crumble some blue or feta cheese on there and prepare to dazzle those lucky enough to be around your summer-harvest table.